news and current affairs.
iPhone Fold aims under $2,000, crease drama lingers
Apple's rumored crease-free iPhone Fold will probably be super hard to find at launch. The device, which might replace Face ID with a side Touch ID sensor for thinness, faces significant manufacturing hurdles that could limit early supply, similar to Samsung's approach with its Galaxy Z TriFold, where each unit gets individual inspection. A recent rumor from the blog yeux1122 suggests this scarcity, though it lacks specific unit numbers, indicating Apple's supply chain is not yet in full swing for mass production. The potential silver lining for customers is a lower-than-expected price point. Earlier estimates around twenty four hundred dollars have been revised down, with a new target reportedly under two thousand dollars, putting it...
Midrange GPUs burn too, 16-pin woes hit RX 9070 XT
That fragile 16-pin connector is still torching mid-range cards now. A Reddit user with the handle divinethreshold reported their Sapphire RX 9070 XT Nitro+ graphics card started causing system crashes after almost nine months of normal use, tracing the problem to a severely burnt power connector. The damage focused on the top row of the 16-pin interface, a typical failure pattern suggesting an improper seat where the load transfers unevenly. This user had powered the card with a Corsair AX1200i power supply, which lacked a native 16-pin port, forcing reliance on the bundled three 8-pin to 16-pin adapter from Sapphire. This incident marks the third known case involving the Sapphire Nitro+ model and follows a previous report with an...
Silent Hill eyes yearly scares, Konami chases buzz
Konami wants a new Silent Hill game every single year. The company's producer, Motoi Okamoto, stated in an interview that following the releases of the Silent Hill 2 remake in 2024 and Silent Hill f in 2025, the goal is to maintain constant hype by dropping roughly one title annually. This plan includes both known projects, like the Silent Hill 1 remake from Bloober Team and the expected Silent Hill: Townfall, plus other unannounced games. Hitting that aggressive annual target would require a major shift in how Konami manages the horror franchise. The company would need to coordinate multiple internal and external development studios simultaneously, a model used by publishers for series like Call of Duty. While financially possible for...
CES bets on AI over gamers, GPUs take a breather
CES is looking rough for gamers this year because of a memory shortage. The big three chip companies, NVIDIA, Intel, and AMD, are all navigating major supply problems with DRAM and GDDR7, which is messing up plans and raising prices. NVIDIA might skip new gaming GPUs like the RTX 50 SUPER series at the show to focus on AI, talking up its Blackwell Ultra and Rubin architectures instead. Intel is pushing its new Core Ultra 300 Panther Lake laptop CPUs built on its 18A process and might show a mid-tier Arc B770 Battlemage GPU. AMD will highlight its next-gen Gorgon Point Ryzen AI 400 APUs and Zen 5 X3D refresh desktop chips, but has no new Radeon cards planned. The overall vibe is a pivot toward AI and data center stuff, even at a...
Steam top sellers lean multiplayer, solo sneaks in
Steam's 2025 cash crowns are basically all multiplayer brawls. The platform's top twelve sellers for new games this year, listed without a specific order, feature heavy hitters like Battlefield 6, ARC Raiders, Hollow Knight Silksong, and Schedule I. Other major titles in that tier include Elden Ring: Nightreign, Borderlands 4, Sid Meier's Civilization VII, EA Sports FC 26, Monster Hunter Wilds, Dune: Awakening, Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2, and The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered. Looking at the broader top sellers, including older games, staples like Counter-Strike 2, Dota 2, PUBG, Apex Legends, and Marvel Rivals still dominate nearly half the list. The new release data shows a clear preference for multiplayer, with nine of the...
Sony’s PS5 Pro gets quieter, cooler, longer-lasting
Sony stealth dropped a slightly better PlayStation 5 Pro. The new CFI model is more efficient and quieter, but performs exactly the same. It uses a revised processor that cuts power use by around four percent. The internal cooler got tweaked to drop fan noise by about two decibels. The updated DualSense controller has a much bigger battery, extending its life by half. No prices changed, staying around eight hundred forty dollars. This revision offers no new features or speed boosts. It just refines the existing hardware for lower heat and better controller endurance. The external design and gaming experience remain completely identical.
NVIDIA’s Feynman GPU may stack SRAM for AI speed
Leaked details point to a big shift in how future NVIDIA graphics chips might handle memory. Rumors about the Feynman architecture suggest stacked SRAM blocks for lower latency, specifically to boost AI inference tasks. This follows their investment in Groq and a move toward specialized processing units. The design would place separate SRAM dies right on the GPU package. Building these memory chips on older, cheaper nodes could cut costs while speeding up data access for targeted workloads. It would not necessarily improve general gaming performance. Packing more silicon together creates serious heat problems, though. Managing that thermal density would be a major engineering hurdle. NVIDIA has not confirmed any of this speculative...
ASUS teases new dual-screen and AI-powered notebooks
ASUS is dropping a bunch of new laptops focused on two screens and AI. Their virtual event on January sixth will show a new Zenbook DUO with a tougher Ceraluminum body, a ProArt model made with GoPro, and several AI PCs. The company is pushing deeper into AI for both regular users and professionals. The updated Zenbook DUO keeps its dual display design for multitasking. ASUS promises better battery life and productivity, but did not give chip or screen details. The GoPro collab laptop is built for creators who shoot action video, stressing durability and easy transport. The wider AI PC lineup will work with new Windows features. Full specs and prices come out during the CES keynote. This rollout shows their plan to bake AI into every...
Tritonet v3 drops, harmony just got hands-on
A music plugin just made complex harmony way easier to mess with. Tritonet v3 for Ableton Live turns the Circle of Fifths into a hands-on control surface for chords and melodies. It stores harmony as clips you can edit and automate like regular audio. The update adds faster graphics and a four-voice chorder with smart voice leading. You can assign each vocal part to its own MIDI track. It also packs a huge scale library, MPE support, and tools for processing pitch. The system works with Live 11 and 12. It costs sixty pounds, but current users get the upgrade for free. This lets producers build entire song structures around movable harmonic grids.
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